


(tell me why) the world never fights fair

by fourleafchloe



Series: (i promise) i'll do better [6]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Hurt Peter Parker, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker Whump, Protective Tony Stark, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Worried Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 19:57:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17086733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourleafchloe/pseuds/fourleafchloe
Summary: It was never supposed to end up this way. Peter lies on the groundin the rain, staring up at the sky, and—He doesn’t cry. He is stronger than this.(He has to be stronger than this.)





	(tell me why) the world never fights fair

**Author's Note:**

> what am i doing starting yet another multichap that i can't handle? the answer is not even i know, lmao enjoy

 

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It was never supposed to end up this way. Peter lies on the ground 

in the rain, staring up at the sky, and— 

He doesn’t cry. He is stronger than this. 

(He has to be stronger than this.) 

The poison soaks through his body slowly. He feels each cell burn like acid, hissing and spitting as it dies—or maybe that's just an overactive imagination at work, filling in all the gaps, but. It hurts. It hurts like hell. 

_ Don't cry, _ he tells himself. Stronger, you're stronger than this, you are, you can—you can— 

_ Oh, fuck—  _

A face appears over him, hovers fuzzy and indistinct against a murky backdrop. The night sky, Peter thinks, should not be so murky. It should be bright. It should be dazzling. 

This far out it should be. 

Before the bite Peter had never seen the stars. Might seem a little sad but he hadn’t minded, had seen all the Hallmark movies and glossy postcards as a kid and figured, yeah, he wasn't missing too much. 

He'd lived in Queens his whole life; there wasn't money for vacation. Before or after he lost it all, money didn't come easy to the Parkers. 

(No stars for Peter. It was okay.) 

“Hey, little boy,” the blurry face says, and then there's a boot on his gut, right on top of the bleeding, burning wound. 

Peter screams loud and hard and horrible. If he were dying in an alleyway in Queens, deep in the shadows of corners of buildings, the screams would echo, would carry, would travel to the ears of someone who could do something. 

(But he's not. He's dying in some stupid stretch of fucking  _ farmland _ out in the middle of nowhere, and no one will hear him, no one will ever, ever hear him.) 

Peter's phone lies six feet away. Shattered but usable, if he could only fucking  _ reach it. _

He tries to think of stretching for it but he's screaming and screaming and it hurts so bad and everything else in his head is fuzzy and indistinct. Important, but  _ damn it, _ he stretches and can't quite reach it, can't reach anything. 

The boot lets up. Peter gasps, sobs, cries and cries like he swore to himself he wouldn't. 

He wants May. He wants Tony. He wants Uncle Ben. He has nobody and he's alone and he doesn't wanna be alone. 

Peter had started coming out here after the bite, started swinging and swinging until there was nothing to swing from anymore, hitched rides on semi trucks and hopped off once the highway cut through stretches of nothing but green, green grass and budding crops. Peter would turn in circles and stare at the stars until he got dizzy with it. 

The  _ stars. _ Bright and—distant, and—and so magical, so indescribable. The night sky like this completely took Peter's breath away. 

He'd missed this. His whole damn life he'd missed this and didn't even know it.

But tonight it had gone wrong, and Peter knew it had probably gone wrong all the nights before this too—probably he had been followed, tracked, scheduled even. Stalked. And here was the perfect opportunity. All alone out here, and his spidey senses had caught the danger, but— 

Peter had dodged the first slash of metal. The second. Not the third, no, it'd caught him dead on as his sixth sense was occupied with dodging a headshot from a second knife. 

Peter blinks up at the blurry face, dizzy and hollow with pain. He was caught off guard in a way he usually is not. 

Whoever this is knows him, knows his powers. 

It’s fucking terrifying. 

Peter went down ten seconds after the blade ripped straight through his abdomen, the poison kicking in quickly, paralysis setting in. It hurts god it hurts it hurts it— 

He doesn't know how long it's been since he went down, but it feels like forever and help isn't coming and he's sure, he's so sure that be is about to kiss his life goodbye. 

_ Please, _ Peter thinks.  _ Please. Please please please.  _

_ If I'm going to die, just get it  _ **_over with_ ** _ already.  _

But he knows that isn't what this man came here to do. 

The knife is back. The guy croons, “Precious baby spider,” and stabs it into the existing would, carving deeper and twisting. Blood comes up Peter's throat, and his scream is wet and he feels a splatter on his skin. 

The poison sears every fiber of muscle and every layer of skin. He's going to die. They're going to find him and the last memory May’s gonna have will be of his  _ fucking mangled corpse _ and oh,  _ god—  _

Peter adds another prayer. 

Let her not see it, he pleads with something higher up than here. Let her never see it. If there's any mercy in this whole goddamned universe let her never, ever see it. 

Peter wishes the guy would move. He doesn't want to see the blurry face, he wants to see the stars. He wants to see the stars before he dies. Please please let him. 

Almost as if heaven is answering him, the man steps back. Peter sees the sky. 

His heart breaks when he looks up and remembers that the sky is still murky, his vision still blurred with poison and pain. 

_ The stars, _ Peter thinks,  _ the stars. _ He wants to see them, please let him see them, if he's going to die slowly like this at least let him see the stars one last time. They're pretty and they make him believe there is more than this. 

But then there's a boot on his gut again and a shriek is torn violently from Peter's throat, wrenched out hoarse and agonized, and he can't think of the stars anymore. Because standing above him is a man who smiles at hearing a kid scream like a wounded animal. 

He screams and he screams and he sobs and he  _ screams _ . 

And distantly, six feet sway, Peter's phone rings. 

 

* * *

 

 

“Tony,” May says, her voice shaking and coming apart at the seams, “Peter’s not picking up his phone.” 

Hm. That's not right. 

Not right first of all because it's three in the morning, why is May calling him now? Not right second of all because, oh. He remembers why. This is what happens when Peter ignores curfew. 

May flips her shit. Calls Tony. Tony flips his shit. 

It's a routine. 

And there are a hundred excuses on Tony’s lips, a hundred easy reasons why Peter is fine, why this is nothing to worry about—even as he’s already having Friday run vitals remotely, already checking the Baby Monitor, he makes his excuses because surely,  _ surely _ Peter is fine. 

Peter's always okay. Well—not always. But always okay enough to be saved. 

He doesn't do this a lot. He's so good hearted, cares too fucking much. Doesn't want to worry his aunt and so he doesn't play with curfew. Last time, three and a half months ago, it was two-thirty in the morning that May called, and Peter was stranded on a rooftop with two gunshot wounds and a dead phone. 

But he'd been okay. May cried and Peter apologized and Tony got another gray hair but Peter was  _ okay. _ (Wasn't dying, wasn't bleeding out enough to kill him, or Friday would definitely have alerted Tony before a damn phone call did.) 

So this time, Tony is sure, this time it must be no different. Friday's there to let him know if Pete's vitals go haywire. He'd know. He'd always know. 

“I’m sure he’s fine, May.” Peter has to be fine, Tony thinks, and feels blind. 

 

* * *

 

 

Then he hears the voicemail. 

 

* * *

 

 

And oh god, something is fucking  _ wrong. _

It's Karen. Karen was calling him. Not Peter, Karen. And Tony grips the table as he listens to the audio she recorded, it's like five seconds long— 

There's a scuffling sound, Peter makes a choking noise and says  _ oh, shit—  _

It cuts off. 

And oh. Fuck. Because the only way Karen would've cut out like that, would've failed to alert Tony, would've failed to let him know that the call was urgent—something happened, someone shorted out the suit. And Tony would know it takes a hell of a lot to do that, which means this—this is something strong. Peter is up against something fucking dangerous in a dead suit that basically amounts to glorified tissue paper. 

From the sound of that voicemail— 

Tony feels sick. Peter made a choking sound. He said  _ oh shit _ and then there's nothing after. This was sent over two hours ago. Over two fucking hours, and Tony didn't even  _ see it. _

“Tony?” Pepper asks from the other side of the bed, hair messed up, wearing his shirt and nothing else. Only one of the lamps is turned on, and her cheeks are rosy in the half-light. 

Tony’s heart is in his stomach. 

“It's the kid,” he says, throat dry. “Oh my god, Pep, it's Peter.” 

 

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End file.
